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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26003020">The Lonely Girl and the Pallid Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird'>SouthernBird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And They Go From There, Colonel Mentioned, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, Inner Dialogue, Iris is Alive AU, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Beta or Edits We Die like We Are at the Space Port, Past Zero/Iris - Freeform, Robot Things, Some War Talk, Why Can't Iris and X Be Friends K, X Always Thinks Too Much, Zero and Iris Dated Once</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:15:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26003020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Knocking works just as well as standing outside a girl’s door for nearly an hour,” Iris teeters, and really, how on earth did Light mean for him to survive this hell, “quicker, too.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Iris/Zero (Rockman), X &amp; Zero, X/Zero (Rockman)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Lonely Girl and the Pallid Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanitorBot/gifts">JanitorBot</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A bit of a companion piece to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25229014">'Of Summer Days and Highway Lanes'</a> and an attempt at a gift for the wonderful Janitorbot who has always been so kind and supportive. (Really though, I needed to figure out some way to see if I could make Jan chuckle with the Iris is Alive idea even if I went major ham on this. :D</p><p>Yes, I took the title from a City Girl video, what do y'all want from me? If it makes sense, I'm good.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The high-rises tower above in monolithic vestiges of prayers to the heavens, standing as grand monuments of steel and glass that glimmer bright halogen throughout the murky shadows of nightlife. These giants are epitomes of mechanical feats, astounding calculations of architecture that have created sweepingly jaw-dropping skylines— and they serve only to make a small dot that exists in this little Milky Way galaxy feel three times smaller.</p><p> </p><p>X checks the coordinates once more while anxiety gnaws at the wiring of his lower torso. Wasps flit around his chest and collide with his internal systems and he nearly turns his heel to be swept away by the static buzz back to the domicile found in the upper levels of headquarters. Hell, he might even send a fretful wish to the clusters of warm-glow stars faded by cold city light to just have one of those buildings collapse at the foundation to fall upon near pusillanimous self.</p><p> </p><p>His purpose there lies in an invitation cordial yet direct, a simple gesture that lacks all the flourishing blooms of lilies that the Hunter would have expected from a reploid whose name is derived from similar flora. Though, what did he expect? For the offering to be handwritten, striking and flowing prose that would succinctly master the amicable nature of the host to be? For the note to have a hint of perfume, rosy and sweet, as a means to entice his nerves into her bidding?</p><p> </p><p>A sigh exhales from his vents, and his partner’s eyes flash in his mind, a summer blue that churned storm cloud worried when the First finally relayed a smidgeon of his reluctancies before he retired to recharge for the night weeks ago.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Why are you so afraid of her, blue jay?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Silly it may seem now while he stands before a door with a digital placard reading ‘0997,’ perhaps X should have just flat-out laughed his fears into fruition because damn it all, does Zero not see the ghosts that he does? Does he truly not feel the weight of a noble soldier bearing down on his back, bending his spine and clawing at his morale?</p><p> </p><p>Ridiculous, X sighs, to assume that the so-called Red Ripper does not deal with his own grisly phantoms that float gossamer and mist into the very corners of his sight and his thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>Still, the lauded Hunter who has fought tooth and nail against his foes in some believed prospect of peace is entirely intimidated by this stupid door, pristine like the corridor he finds some refuge in. The door does not shift nor speak, and X is unsure if seconds have passed or, hell, maybe it has been a few hours. There is a lack of city sound that does not anchor his artificial senses into that hallway and besides; he would like to float away instead.</p><p> </p><p>The door opens, nearly startling his processors out from his mouth, and Iris, inconspicuously adorned in casual clothes and her long hair braided back, peers dead on at him with a blank expression.</p><p> </p><p>It is then and there that X would prefer to entangle himself in another grueling battle of whim and vigor against Sigma thrice more times so long as it made this girl ashen and dull into a fading gleam of dreamy midnight. But Iris, as Zero has forewarned in his cryptic half-ways, is a strange kind of observer that dismantles the Hunter with her sight alone and makes him feel four times smaller.</p><p> </p><p>“How—?” is all X can croak out until green eyes (so much like his own, so vibrant with green yet so brittle at the edges) cut him off with a glint of mischief.</p><p> </p><p>“Knocking works just as well as standing outside a girl’s door for nearly an hour,” Iris teeters, and really, how on earth did Light mean for him to survive this hell, “quicker, too.”</p><p> </p><p>All procedure algorithms fritz then flatline, nothing surfacing from the tidal waves of data crashing at just how casual he is being treated since, well, does he not deserve a little admonishment for what all transpired since their days working together during the Erasure incident? Yet, for all their once brief discussions and cordial greetings, for all the blood and metal scraps that mottled history’s remarks on what could have been a grand, noble army, the once Navigator seems more complacent offering her kindest gaze.</p><p> </p><p>It is unnerving in all the worse of ways, the same as the day X watched a bastion in the sky crumble across a twilit horizon from some lonesome cliffside.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, where are my manners? Come in, come in! I just finished getting the place how I like it,” and she is far stronger than she looks, even by reploid standards, taking the First’s hands as thought they were long lost friends meeting again after ages apart, their puzzle pieces falling right align as though not one second had been spent apart. As X is dragged into the apartment, it feels more like a trap, some poison, spike filled ruse that will be his demise.</p><p> </p><p>His optics clear from their alarming fuzz, the static blurring into high definition, and everything blossoms into cozy resplendence.</p><p> </p><p>Iris’ apartment is a dream lofting in materialistic indulgence, and X feels that sharp snap of envy that bleeds plum as he takes it all in. Ferns hang from the corners of the open space, their vines draping in curling beckoning to the polished floors covered in fine carpets while knick knacks cover the tabletops adorning it all. Books and small statues are in somehow succinctly organized yet cluttered precisely all the same, and X longs for the simplicity of it, feels it heavy on his tongue, this life that could be lived without the beating of war drums that howl after every waking fear of glitching reploids.</p><p> </p><p>His mind wanders to his partner, wonders bitterly if Zero in all his minimalistic mannerisms that would perhaps scoff at the frivolities that X would to partake in while finding Iris’ decorum perfectly <em>her</em>. The thoughts morph easily from there, catalyze into a burning, core-smelting dread that this one possession that he covets to his breast is a fickle as he sometimes fears.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to stand there all night or would you like some tea?”</p><p> </p><p>The syllables jumble and scatter into afterthought until X blinks himself back to the reality at hand, his rupturing fears cast aside like hot iron as he fixes his sight onto his former Navigator. “You have tea?”</p><p> </p><p>Iris laughs, all singsong and spring shine and X nearly boils vitriol with how pleasant it sounds, “Zero’s recommendation, and I happen to like the taste.”</p><p> </p><p>The envy froths forth, spilling into his circuit boards and his cognizant state, leaving every limb fog-heavy and tired as Iris patters away to an electric kettle so she can pour two heaping cups of chai rooibos. The scent of the brew is nothing short of mellifluous, cardamom and clove waltzing about in curling steam lines as the girl brings her offering to the small bistro set that overlooks the boisterous cacophony of Abel City. For a moment, she watches him once the cups left on strawberry-hued coasters, but her patience wanes like moonlight, found evident as her gaze turns discontent.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t think he meant it when he said you would be so stiff. Sit! Come sit!”</p><p> </p><p>X is a fusser— he knows this after being told by many of his Unit members, and even by his own lover, that he is. To him, the details are all important, the welfare of others even greater, and his own health and safety are dull afterthoughts that rumble their inference well after a mission is barely accomplished. He is the First in lineage only, far from confident to place his own self above even the greenest of trainees.</p><p> </p><p>Iris, though, might out fuss him, huffing loudly when he doesn’t even creep an inch to the bistro table. She comes closer, boots clicking on the floor only to echo in his aural cones, until her hands tug him by his wrists over to settle right down, much to her cozying delight.</p><p> </p><p>X watches her, too puzzled because this hospitality never crossed his thoughts when he accepted the invitation to finally visit her. Does she ever treat Zero this way? Did she <em>ever </em>treat him with such candor? Did he ever submit to her, idling over to her whims to placate a vessel of sunshine that roused the world into stillness when she held her head high and proclaimed herself one of the last survivors of Repliforce’s high ranks? Were they not happy together?</p><p> </p><p>Green eyes of a weathered soldier trace down the curtains towards his cup of unassuming tea, the cinnamon redolent as he finally breaks to take a diffident sip. He could almost laugh as he cradles a cup to his lips that depicts a family of ducks along the lip; Iris truly has touched upon every detail of her abode.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, don’t you dare laugh— that’s Zero’s cup. Though… he never uses it since he can’t taste anything.”</p><p> </p><p>“It isn’t proper fuel to him,” X offers his olive branch despite the scathing thorns of his darker flowers still sharp in his core, “and he lacks taste receptors, as you said.”</p><p> </p><p>Iris hums, swirling her tea in her cup while she allows a smidgeon of a pout to puff her cheeks, “that isn’t fair, but maybe he wouldn’t be so stuffy if he could.”</p><p> </p><p>Something glasslike cracks within X, the fissures weblike as he turns the cup in the palms of his hands. He cannot quite place it, unsure if there is anything for reference to do so, but there is something familiar with her admission as though the opinion were his own. Memory, though, is a mysterious thread that tangles him, distantly calling to him with sea drifts and seagull cries and vanilla cold on his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Are you saying we would be compatible as friends?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“</em>
  <b>
    <em>Too </em>
  </b>
  <em>compatible.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>And, he laughs, or rather— he <em>is </em>laughing, already so caught up in the own absurdity of it all that his partner was too correct, too right on the mark that even he himself, so overwrought with the fear of stepping into a voracious spider’s web that he was too blinded to see a garden of friendly labor set in his path.</p><p> </p><p>Were he just to take one measly second away from time’s silver ringlets, X would see a sight of a befuddled girl with eyes that mirror is own, clandestine verdant that holds in the leaves darker coves of shadows only they could see.</p><p> </p><p>“I said the same thing,” and he has in a myriad of instances that flash behind his eyes, has said so many truths that feel so wistful to bubbling humor in right then, “I’ve told him if he’d just try the upgrade—.”</p><p> </p><p>His host nearly crumbles into giggles herself in agreeable interruption, a hand to her mouth to politely hide her celestial-brimmed smile. A charming reaction that he knows he does himself, but the First is far too transfixed as something comes by and by. Though his limbs calm into place while she carries on, X dimly retrieves a tall-tale of a story from his days with Dr. Cain of a woman who made the world fall to her smile, a woman who could melt the hearts of the hardest of men on to make them fall to their knees for her. A myth of the highest caliber, this woman could spin fate’s looms with a placid tilt of her wrist and an adoring glimmer in her eyes—.</p><p> </p><p>Wintry revelation frosts his sensors yet again as it dawns upon him that things could have gone so horribly, terribly wrong.</p><p> </p><p>“He never listens! Never! I have tried more times than I can count, but he is insufferably stubborn— why, there was a time before Sky Lagoon—.”</p><p> </p><p>And then it all cracks, crashing down high-pitched and miserable, and their affable attempts of pleasantries withers into some rotted, tarred vestige. Regrettably, what is left in the calamity is a humid and suffocating oppression that leaves them too still for desperate mentation, that leaves them too muted for cloying amends that are not theirs to rightly give.</p><p> </p><p>It feels all too intrusive to sit amongst the gazing flowers and accompanying succulents, to watch a girl that used to radiate with naivety and kindness (like himself once, and maybe even still if the rust and dirt were washed away in baptismal deluge) be this shriveled up shell that exudes sorrow. How her shoulders slump and her chin hangs low while she stares dully into her tea up is enough to break the coldest and firmest of hearts.</p><p> </p><p>A sigh vents from her lips before they purse, and Iris murmurs to her guest all her woes in one single statement: “I swear even now I think I… I am unstable. Broken, like I cannot ever be pieced together right ever again.”</p><p> </p><p>What can X even remark to her? What can he rouse from the discussions of mortality, machine or human otherwise, with an old cantankerous man he buried just short of the Fourth War? What bereavement can he heal with consoling syllables only half meant, the same bland comforts given by unknown human counterparts of the man the Hunter regarded as father laid six fathoms deep? What solace could he alleviate when solace is a far more candid friend?</p><p> </p><p>It would be for naught, his shaded gray attempts, but his synapses misfire all the same, and he talks far too out of his head to be the well-mannered, well-tested moral compass his creator impassioned him to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Zero said you were unstable during… which prompted… er—.”</p><p> </p><p>Iris simply smiles, and it is nearly unbearable to see as the creases and the feelings never quite reaching her eyes. It is a damn loathsome pause, then her fingers shift to tap the smooth curve of the lilac crystal embedded on her chest. Her touch is near reverent, endearing as a lost soul without an anchor to this world, but the air sours into a solemn and burdensome ambiance that would suffocate a lesser being.</p><p> </p><p>Something like acid burns in X’s throat and he feels like he has trespassed into a thorny grove of wilting lilies and marble headstones.</p><p> </p><p>“I had lost my other half that makes us a whole; unstable really isn’t the best term, I think.”</p><p> </p><p>For all her short years, for all the moments she has not been activated while he treaded off into conflicts only to come home ached and bruised and angered, Iris seems his elder by centuries, a relic of a war that should have never been yet <em>was</em>. She was in the crossfire— and yet she drew the lines only to step right over them, her own turbulent approach to be shakeable accomplice to a military might framed for war crimes at the behest of needing a scapegoat.</p><p> </p><p>He wonders if the saddest facet to see in all this is that she perhaps learned that love is a burdensome chain, pride is a crippling sin, and honor is a thoughtless gallantry. It all clouds his head and tightens his fingers, makes everything heavier, deeper, when the guilt that plagues him in the shadows at night when the thunder rolls and the cloud gloom spindles tight down his spine.It is an empty sensation that stings in his heart and writhes into some sick paranoia that bids him to gaze at her once more only to realize—.</p><p> </p><p>Her loneliness is his regret, all twisted butterfly wings twined with feathers of phantom hopes that line her lips with periwinkle laments and stillborn fantasies.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a bit funny now,” but Iris’ voice is void of any humor and X can appreciate how hollow it sounds, “that I died two deaths yet could not be left alone to them.”</p><p> </p><p>X’s curiosity is piqued, a cat to a canary cage that withholds a secret songbird in gilded bars because he was only informed she was rebooted from one near fatal shutdown, “two?”</p><p> </p><p>Then, before him, Iris seems to age, then a widow that should have been enrobed with her grandest funeral garments as dusts settled along the creases of her perfectly suppose features and ash coats her circuits, nearly the same as the day Zero carried her would-be corpse back home. The First can still feel the prickling whispers of rumors and hisses of inquiries that drag along his nape, images of that funeral march gloaming in shadowy dance behind his lids. Hunters, comrades in arms, had been so envenomed as the blond took Iris to the nearest Lifesaver that met him in the corridors for whatever audacity Zero had to bring an enemy home was most certainly not welcomed. </p><p> </p><p>Even then, X wonders if mercy would not have been better suited in her being space dust to lazily intertwine in the cosmic fair of comet tails and planetary ice as he perceives before him a woman that has known war intimately like a faithless lover.</p><p> </p><p>Slowly, though, time smooths her lips into a tiny smile, timid as it may be, as her eyes light up once again with some strange figment of <em>hope</em>. It would have thrown the azure bot off kilter if he were not already sitting on the perch of his seat despite his usual manners, but what comes next certainly does the trick.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, one would be when my brother was ki— died. When he died,” then Iris stops, eyes shutting tight before she exhales her cobwebs and her burdens only to gaze right into his very soul as her love laid bare and dying, “and the last be when I was told what I wanted more than anything… was just a fantasy.”</p><p> </p><p>X’s entire system pauses so abruptly a hand comes to his chest to stave off the knife that Iris has put right there with her pain, and he knows, <em>knows </em>beyond any doubt, that he sits there in her home and her presence a coward too timid to let her know why sanguine stains his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” is all that mutters out on half-meant breaths, “I’m so sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Iris smiles and it hurts further still when it feels like she is intent to beguile him into some confession. Then, she commits the unthinkable, and reaches her hand across the table in some awful, hopeful offering of truce. And— X could scream rage, hot and molten and uproarious— how dare she do this, how dare she be this forgiving, this understanding, when he can never forgive himself?</p><p> </p><p>But, he is there instead a pallid moon that sinks down the skylines and cloud trails to kneel before a lonely girl, reluctant as he might be when he takes her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“No more sorries,” Iris soothes, squeezing their fingers together in some lukewarm attempt at comfort that almost rips at what little tapes his glass heart together. “I really can’t stand them anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>It dissolves from there, and what could have been a disastrous meeting full of feints and fakes blooms a companionship too compatible for poetry to ascertain. Hours tick along like languid stoplight, though it ends with X leaving Iris’ apartment later than intended with a small parcel of tea and pastries safe for reploid consumption. The girl is nothing short of giggling when the azure Hunter is fervently adamant that they plan to visit the market in downtown Abel City on his next day off to purchase more desserts or else she will find him on her couch for the night. Even though she abides his threats, there is an inkling of a presumption he might would have stayed to talk longer, but she shoos him away when his first yawn came and, well, as per her words: Zero will have thought she may have done away with his boyfriend with no qualms about it.</p><p> </p><p>The air is crisp from thunderheads passed by, fresh rainfall tinging his olfactory senses as he traverses the streets and the alleys back to base. His boots crisscross about cerulean puddles and lilac glows until home is right in sights, and it is not far too long until X is right next to a war bot with eyes of ocean foam and tide pools while he watches the silver city bustle about to a budding dawn.</p><p> </p><p>For the first night in what feels like ages, the shadow of a soldier gone is missing from the corner of a sparsely decorated bedroom, and peace might feel inches closer than the hours before.</p>
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